Christopher Curtis

After criticizing the recent firing of President Judith Woodsworth by Concordia’s Board of Governors, the Concordia University Faculty Association announced it will hold an open meeting to discuss the university’s “crisis in governance” next Monday.

Sylvie is a single mother. She works full time at a minimum-wage job to provide for her two children. Faced with mounting credit card debt and a stack of other bills, Sylvie turned to a food bank to help ease the cost of feeding her family.

The dismissal of two longtime Concordia University auditors by President Judith Woodsworth has created a compromising situation for the school with Quebec’s labour review board. In filing a grievance, the auditors have produced a trail of paperwork showing that the university’s senior administrators participated in the same type of behaviour that led to their firing.

Students enjoying a three-month break from the years of construction that took place outside Concordia’s Hall building should prepare for a series of major renovations within it. A $15 million proposal to gut and replace the Hall building’s infamously defective escalators awaits approval from Concordia’s Board of Governors.

Two Concordia buildings will undergo intensive repairs this spring.
A $14 million project to reclad the university’s GM Building will begin this March and likely last until the end of 2011. Renovations on the western wall of the Faubourg Tower are also slated for March and will last until November.

Projet Montreal leader Richard Bergeron resigned from the city’s executive committee last Thursday after refusing to support the Ministère du Transport de Québec’s $3 billion plan to overhaul the Turcot interchange.

Firas Zahabi is the first Canadian mixed martial arts trainer to be nominated for a World MMA award. This week he sat down with The Link to discuss bullying, some of his training methods and his recent collaboration with fighter Miguel Torres.

Is there a logical leap between debating Plato’s metaphysical reality and slapping an armbar on someone?
Logical or not, Firas Zahabi made that leap when he went from Concordia University philosophy graduate to internationally renowned mixed martial arts trainer. Zahabi—whose students include UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and former featherweight champ Miguel Torres—is nominated for “best trainer” at the 2010 World MMA Awards, which take place on Dec. 1 in Las Vegas.

Nearly 40 students occupied the ninth floor of Concordia’s GM building on Oct. 27 to protest the university’s agreement to extend its contract with PepsiCo. as the exclusive provider of on-campus beverages.

In the 65 years since Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust, there has been no end to ethnic cleansing, genocide and mass murder on a global scale.
Faced with this staggering reality, Wiesel refuses to be discouraged.